Exchange Place
How a Small, Struggling School Helped Transform Civil Rights in New Orleans and the Nation
By Jeanne Geoffray and Jeff Geoffray
Exchange Place recounts how the Adult Education Center, its determined graduates, and its director and faculty put everything on the line to transform the segregated workplaces of New Orleans and the country during the 1960s and early 1970s.
The little New Orleans school trained Black women to integrate the largest corporations in America as secretaries, becoming a powerhouse of social justice and social change. The school placed 94 percent of its predominantly Black graduates in jobs with salaries above the national average for working white or Black women in comparable positions. It was the most successful program of its kind in Louisiana during President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Exchange Place is a history of the school that explains why, and an unforgettable story of courage and sacrifice during the 1960s civil rights era.
The students and teachers of the Adult Education Center brought the business community of New Orleans together to make changes that were decades—no, generations—overdue, changes that challenged a legacy of white supremacy. By telling the story of what was considered a radical experiment for its time, it is the authors’ hope that Exchange Place can provide lessons for America today.